Book fans have recently seen a lot of new developments in the way that they consume their favourite medium – with the Kindle, e-readers and smart phones all making big changes in the way that many people read and enjoy books. However, while the average novel can now be enjoyed in a number of new ways, comic books are something that were until recently still rather limited in terms of the way that they could be enjoyed.

However that’s all been changing recently, as the comic book industry in a bid to stay alive and stay relevant, has been looking at various new ways for users to purchase and enjoy comic books in a digital format.
And iPhones and Androids have played a big part in this by allowing people to enjoy the kind of portability necessary to make it worthwhile along with crisp clear screens, bright colors and quick connection speeds. As such there are now several ways that you can enjoy comics on your phone, or just enjoy ‘comic related’ stuff. Here we will look at some of the best examples of comic coming to smart phones.

ComiXology: ComiXology is one of the best known comics apps which basically gives you a single place where you can download a huge range of comics – many of them on the same day as print. The store is very intuitive just like the iTunes or Play stores, and this allows you to quickly download any comic with your card details ready to go. It also contains a reader which allows you to view a panel at a time, or whole pages at a time, and which can actually improve your comic reading experience in some ways (for instance by preventing you from looking ahead).

The Marvel Comics App: The Marvel Comics App is essentially just ComiXology, but exclusively for Marvel comics. The two apps are pretty similar, but this one will support Marvel’s new infinite’ comics which provide some rather more interesting uses of the digital format – including things like fading in images and slight animations.

Marvel AR: AR is ‘augmented reality’ and this is a great example of Marvel proving to be something of an innovator when it comes to new formats or comics. This app basically allows you to enjoy extra media on top of your comic book experience by pointing the camera at pages with a symbol on them. This can be sketches and pencils that went into the making of the page, supplementary information that can help add more to the story, or just cool 3D images and videos.

Comic Book Readers: There are many comic book readers out there that are independent of online stores, and which will let you read any cbr file you have on your phone. This is good news for those who have downloaded comics and want to read them on the go, and if you can find digital copies of some of your current issues this can conceivably allow you to carry your entire collection around with you in your pocket – just like having a Kindle but for comics.

About the Author:

Gray Rollins is blogger and huge fan of Iphone and Iphone apps. He recently posted some tips on how totrack your Iphonethe easiest way!